The Message
by fakescorpion
Summary: Because leaving messages for a specific future is difficult, and strange minds tend to think alike. Or maybe it is just the Bleeding Effect.


___disclaimer: I don't own Assassin's Creed or any of its characters._

_Because leaving messages for a specific future is difficult, and strange minds tend to think alike. Or maybe it is just the Bleeding Effect._

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**The Message**

He has been here for days now, maybe weeks.

The extended period of Animus sessions leave him confused and disoriented. He sees ghosts off the corners of his vision and he hears whispers when he is alone. Then someone will be addressing him and he will take half a second too long to realize they are real, actual people. He will start to respond, only for them to fade.

He lies on the bed but subconsciously refuses the long needed rest. Because he's afraid when he does he'll become someone else who he isn't supposed to be.

But the too white walls hurt his eyes.

_It had been days now, maybe weeks._

_The shadows of the personal quarter stretched long. And he stayed at its most secluded corner, spreading himself almost lazily on the __carpets between the pillows and silken sheets,__ wearing the shade like a second cloak._

_The blinding image would not fade though, even in the depth of darkness, even after all this time. The beauty of its golden glow rested by his feet._

_A poisonous seduction in his mirroring golden eyes._

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He has been here weeks now. Maybe months? He can no longer tell for sure.  
But he knows he needs to leave, to escape, especially now that he has some ideas of what the true purpose of their operation is.

_He had spent days with it now. Or had it been weeks? Months? He could no longer be certain.  
A weapon? A catalogue? A message? The image of that first glow forever seared into his mind. It had a tale to tell, with him as the only listener._

He is trapped. Alone and abandoned.

A message. He needs to leave a message for the next, for that he needs to find a pen.

_He was mesmerized. Obsessed and captivated._

_Leave a message, it told him. A message that only the prophet could see._

He uses red ink to write and paint on the walls and the floors. In the late of the night. Always in the late of the night. Because he cannot sleep or he will wake up as someone else he is not and his name is...

It's not red ink. Someone whispers.

And he is frantically scrubbing his work off with a red red red towel, because these are not for their eyes. These are only for the next person to see.

_Parchment did not meet his needs, too easily damaged by __humidity__ and the stains too permanent, so he later opted leather and hide. The late of the night, he always worked in the late of the night. Because only then was he freed from his duties and he could..._

_Soft footsteps, he heard._

_And he threw the first part of his finished work into the basin, dyeing the clear water red. Because the message was not for their eyes, the message was only for the prophet to see._

He buries the pen deep into his wrist.  
He needs more ink. He needs more ink. He needs more ink.

_The cut was severe but it mattered very little.  
Almost done now, he thought, as he calmly dipped the tip of his quill into the red._

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It is finally done. The message is finally done. And he is so very tired.

_Finished at last. And fatigued washed over him._

Right now, he just wanted to rest.

_Maybe later when he could properly think again, he would come up with a second method of hiding the message. Right now though, he needed to rest._

He hears someone scream.

_He heard someone scream._

He closes his eyes.

_He closed his eyes._

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Early in the morning, Clay is found dead in a pool of his own blood, with red towels scattered about... and a broken pen clutching tightly in his hands.

_And late one night, Altaïr was found dying in the Grandmaster's study, with pages and pages of leather soaked in his blood... and the Apple of Eden glowing by his side._

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_Because the hidden layer of the Codex was clearly done in blood.  
Check under Eagle Vision, it's red and glowing and looks exactly like Subject Sixteen's blood drawings._


End file.
